


Threat

by babel



Category: Blake's 7
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-07
Updated: 2015-07-07
Packaged: 2018-04-08 02:29:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4287282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/babel/pseuds/babel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jenna doesn't trust the alien newcomer on the Liberator, so she watches for signs of treachery. (Takes place from Time Squad through Seek-Locate-Destroy.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Threat

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted in 2011. Revised in 2015.

Jenna didn't speak to Blake outside of the flight deck for three days after he decided Cally would stay on their ship.

"I don't know why you hate her so much," Vila muttered one time. Jenna was pointedly ignoring Blake and Cally, who were quietly discussing something in a far corner of the flight deck. "She seems all right to me."

Jenna shot Vila a look to warn him off, but he just shrugged. "Seems a little petty, that's all."

"It's not," Jenna replied, loudly enough for the others to hear.

* * *

Jenna watched Cally for any signs of treachery. Blake wouldn’t see them; his idealism made him too easy a target for a sad and heroic story like the one she told. She watched how Cally pulled on the corners of her clothing, as if they didn’t quite fit. She watched how Cally pressed her hands against her thighs and rolled her shoulders when she was tired but didn’t want to leave the flight deck. She watched how Cally’s eyes were always moving when she listened to Blake, assessing every detail.

Jenna had been watching the newcomer so closely that, by the time Cally sabotaged the Liberator and threatened her at gunpoint to give up the flight controls, she was the first one to realize that the girl threatening her wasn’t _quite_ Cally.

As little as she wanted to admit it, Jenna knew Cally simply wouldn't do that to people who had put their trust in her, even if she’d only met them a few days before.

* * *

As soon as they were away from Saymon's web, Jenna tracked Blake down and cornered him. "You must at least consider that she is a threat."

"Pardon me?" Blake asked laughingly.

"Look, I know it wasn't her fault, but she could have killed us. What benefit does she grant us that makes up for that?"

Blake rubbed at his chin. "You were possessed too, you know."

Jenna blinked. "What?"

"Saymon spoke to us through you, actually." Blake shrugged. "I can't lose both of you."

Jenna frowned, not entirely convinced. "Even if he did, I didn't damage the ship and fly us into that web."

"True."

"I know you're sympathetic to her situation, Blake," Jenna said.

Blake put his hand on Jenna's shoulder with that smile of his that said she'd come around eventually. "She has a weakness; we all do. I don't feel any more sympathy toward her than I do you."

"Don't patronize me. It makes Avon's suggestions all the more appealing."

"You can always follow him, if you like."

Jenna shrugged his hand off of her and walked past him. "I don't follow anyone."

* * *

Cally was dead, and they’d left her in that Federation base on Centero

Jenna had lost people before, but it was always hardest when she hadn't actually _seen_ the body. Still, she was experienced enough to shut off any emotional response, and even had the energy to talk Blake out of his ridiculous guilt. There wasn't any point in all of them dying just to save a corpse.

It was only when she was alone that she began to feel some ridiculous guilt of her own.

She'd tried to sleep, but each time she closed her eyes, all those moments she'd watched Cally came back. Little things. Things that amounted to nothing, like slender fingers curling around a loose thread on the hem of her tunic...

Jenna went to the flight deck and put on the headphones to listen in on the Federation cipher. There wasn't any point, since it was all going to microtape, but it gave her something else to think about.

When she finally heard the words _injured female prisoner taken after attack on communications base planet Centero…_ she had shut off the guilt-tinged memories so expertly that she couldn't even feel relief.

* * *

Cally was sitting on the flight deck, chewing on her lip the way she did when she was puzzling over something. Unconsciously, she was tugging on the edge of her tunic.

Jenna watched her from her station at the controls. She was a threat. She was a more experienced rebel than anyone but Blake. She could easily take Jenna's role at Blake's right hand in a way the others couldn't. If she ran into that kind of threat to her position as a smuggler, she'd find a way to undercut it, to drive it out.

Perhaps it was as petty as Vila had said. 

She took a deep breath. "Cally."

Cally looked up, startled out of her thoughts.

"Come here. I want to teach you to fly this, so perhaps I can get a little more rest around here." Jenna quirked an eyebrow. "If you're interested in being useful."

"All right." Cally stood and came over to Jenna's station. Jenna moved so she could sit at the controls. 

Cally looked up at Jenna with a quizzical expression.

"Confused already?" Jenna asked with a smirk.

"No... Well, yes, I suppose so." Cally tilted her head. "I had thought you didn't care for me."

Jenna eyed Cally, still guarded. "We’re stuck with each other. It's only practical to get along."

Cally smiled, and it made her eyes sparkle. "Okay." She gave a determined nod. "Teach me."


End file.
